July 08, 2011

Just The Facts

The Mile High City
According to The Daily, there are now more "medical" marijuana dispensaries in the city of Denver than there are Starbucks.

The Web Is Shrinking, Kinda
According to the website All Things D, when you remove Facebook from the rest of the Web, minutes of use of the web shrank by nearly nine percent between March 2010 and March 2011.

Unclear On The Concept
Last week, a 55-year old man participating in a motorcycle ride to protest mandatory helmet laws in New York was killed during the protest when he was thrown over the handlebars of his bike. He was not wearing a helmet.

Yeah, But What About All Those Conversations?
Social media is the best way to engage with consumers, right? Uh, not really. The website Coherent Social Media reports on a study by Razorfish that indicates that social media is among the worst ways to engage with consumers. Consumers rated email, websites, telephone, and even print ads above Facebook.

Teach Your Children WellThe Christian Science Monitor calls it the biggest school cheating scandal in American history. But not a single student was involved. Apparently, award-winning gains by students in the Atlanta, GA Public School system were the result of a conspiracy by 178 teachers and principals to cheat the system on standardized tests.

Sick Of The Click
According to Solve Media, you are more likely to survive a plane crash or win the lottery than click on a banner ad.

Dumbest Campaign Currently Airing
Coors Light "The bar exam." Feels like it was written by the cleverest guy in the billing department.

You Can't Escape Me
Be sure to catch my semi-brilliant letter to the editor in The New York Times Book Review section this coming Sunday.

Help Wanted: Experienced account director who has managed a franchise-based account (ideally, but not necessarily, fast food.) This is an excellent position with the potential to manage an office. The position is in the Pacific Northwest. Send an email to adcontrarian@gmail.com

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Ad Contrarian Says:

"Creative people make the ads. Everyone else makes the arrangements."

"Delusional thinking isn't just acceptable in marketing today -- it's mandatory.""Good ads appeal to us as consumers. Great ads appeal to us as humans."

"Social Media: Tens of millions of disagreeable people looking to make trouble."

"As an ad medium, the web is a much better yellow pages and a much worse television."

"Sometimes success in the advertising business is about sitting quietly and letting clients proceed with their hysterical delusions."

"Marketers prefer precise answers that are wrong to imprecise answers that are right."

"Brand studies last for months, cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and generally have less impact on business than cleaning the drapes."

"The idea that the same consumer who was frantically clicking her TV remote to escape from advertising was going to merrily click her mouse to interact with it is going to go down as one of the great advertising delusions of all time."

"Nobody really knows what "creativity" is. Every year thousands of people take a pilgrimage to find out. This involves flying to Cannes, snorting cocaine, and having sex with smokers."

"Marketers habitually overestimate the attraction of new things and underestimate the power of traditional consumer behavior."

"We don’t get them to try our product by convincing them to love our brand. We get them to love our brand by convincing them to try our product."

"In American business, there is nothing stupider than the previous generation of management."

"If the message is right, who cares what screen people see it on? If the message is wrong, what difference does it make?"

"The only form of product information on the planet less trustworthy than advertising is the shrill ravings of web maniacs."

"There's no bigger sucker than a gullible marketer convinced he's missing a trend."

"All ad campaigns are branding campaigns. Whether you intend it to be a branding campaign is irrelevant. It will create an impression of your brand regardless of your intent."

"Nobody ever got famous predicting that things would stay pretty much the same."